Decison 35 Open de Versoix at Club Nautique de Versoix - Overall

Nickel wins the sixth event of the Vulcain Trophy © Pierre Menoux

Ernesto Bertarelli's Alinghi wins

Ernesto Bertarelli leads his team to victory in the race of the day and thus wins the Open de Versoix II in front of Fred Moura, on Nickel, and Jérôme Clerc, skipper of Realstone Sailing, leader of the overall ranking. The victory of Alinghi gives a chance to keep guessing about the final outcome of Vulcain Trophy 2012.

Nobody would have bet on the outcome of this day. Crews were still talking, reading or playing cards at 2 pm. The sailors had to wait patiently since the skippers briefing at 9.30 in the morning. The water was calm and flat...

After some weather enquiries, the Club Nautique de Versoix race committee decided to send all the teams on the water around 3 pm and headed towards an area closer to Geneva in order to fetch the westerly wind. Good decision. Suddenly a light wind started and built up into a nice 10 knots breeze. The start was given at 15h 51. Three boats crossed the line before the signal: De Rham Sotheby's, Okalys Corum and Veltigroup had to come back and pass the line again.

This sunny late summer Sunday was really nice for family excursions on the lake, whether on small sailing yachts or on motor boats for water skiing or going out for a swim... therefore the D35 had to race between all kinds of obstacles and must have made some people shiver when flying just next to them... The racing has been very tight. The final run has been an exciting sprint that gave the advantage to Ernesto Bertarelli, while Dona Bertarelli on Ladycat finished in second position showing a great racing with impeccable maneuvers and tactics. Realstone finished third just in front of Zen Too and Nickel that ended up at a remarkable second place overall.

"It is always difficult to be really, really happy when victory is played on only two races. In addition, the 3 first boats in the ranking are tied. We really haven't had any luck with the weather. "says Ernesto Bertarelli. "But at least we had promised to try to give a hard time to Realstone... so we do what we can to get there!", he says with a smile.

Dona Bertarelli who finished second in the race today, allowing Ladycat to move up to the third place in the overall championship standings, said: "This was the race that we could not miss. Marie Riou had a big pressure on the shoulders for replacing Yann Guichard at the tactics. She succeeded wonderfully today!"

The next event in the calendar is the Grand Prix Grange & Cie, the penultimate stage of the Vulcain Trophy, presented by Business & Decision, which will take place on 22 and 23 September at the Yacht Club de Genève. This event already promises friendly and exciting moments. Indeed the Yacht Club de Genève is probably one of the best "spots" on the lake to watch the races and they will be commented from the shore.

Open de Versoix II Results:

1. Alinghi (Ernesto Bertarelli)
2. Nickel (Fred Moura)
3. Realstone Sailing (Jérôme Clerc)
4. Ladycat (Dona Bertarelli)
5. Okalys Corum (Nicolas Grange)
6. Veltigroup (Boris Lerch)
7. Zen Too (Guy de Picciotto)
8. De Rham-Sotheby's (Philippe Cardis)
9. Artemis Racing (Torbjorn Tornqvist)

Vulcain Trophy 2012 Rankings:

1. Realstone Sailing, 6pts
2. Alinghi, 13pts
3. Ladycat, 17pts
4. De Rham Sotheby's, 17pts
5. Artemis Racing, 23pts
6. Zen Too, 28pts
7. Nickel, 32pts
8. Okalys Corum, 32pts
9. Veltigroup, 32pts

A photo gallery named "Archives 2004-2010" is now available on the website, showing images of the epic D35 series since its start in 2004. The complete results also on www.vulcaintrophy.com